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AP Photo/Susan Walsh Louisiana Senator John Kennedy in Washington O n a day when American students and their supporters marched to demand stricter gun laws and to memorialize 17 people brutally killed at a Florida high school, the news broke that Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana intended to file an animal protection bill. The move came about 48 hours after the death of 10-month old puppy on a Houston to New York flight after United Airlines employees forced the owners to put the animal in overhead bin. I will be filing a bill tomorrow that will prohibit airlines from putting animals in overhead bins. Violators will face significant fines. Pets are family. — John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) March 14, 2018 His compassion for puppies is commendable. But Kennedy proposes to take zero action on the gun violence that kills schoolchildren. OK, people love puppies, and animal welfare is an important issue. Few owners want to consign an animal to an airplane cargo hold if they can...

(Sarah Reingewirtz/The Orange County Register via AP) Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy Lisa Jansen sets up a picture at the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles on February 21, 2018, showing AR-15-type weapons and ammunition found at a student's home after he threatened a school shooting at El Camino High School in Whittier. I n the wake of the Parkland massacre, amid the din of CNN town halls and CPAC chest-thumping, the copycats slink out. Every school shooting leads to an uptick in threats to schools. Police must investigate people who post photos of AR-15s with callous captions on social media, along with students who think threatening a massacre is funny. But there’s been little attention paid to the sum total of post-Parkdale disasters-in-the-making that have been prevented. Law enforcement officials responding to tips in multiple states have discovered caches of weapons in the homes of young men who have made threats against schools, some of them featuring the same AR-15 semi-...

AP Photo/Cliff Owen Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter speaks in Washington I n 2008, National Rifle Association sued Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat, after he signed five new gun measures into law. A state court later upheld three provisions, but struck down the two strongest ones that limited gun purchases and banned the purchase and ownership of certain assault weapons. Although Nutter continued to take on state lawmakers over gun issues throughout his two terms, heavily Democratic Philadelphia must contend with Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled General Assembly on a hot-button issue like gun safety. Pre-emption was one of the thorny issues that Nutter tackled during his two terms in office. Nutter now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia. He stopped by The American Prospect ’s offices in downtown Washington to discuss his new book Mayor: The Best Job in Politics with Prospect Deputy Editor Gabrielle Gurley. This conversation has been condensed and...

(Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) North Korean soldiers march during a military parade on February 8, 2018, in Pyongyang to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the military. T he 45th president of the United States craves a military parade in the nation’s capital. Most presidential inaugural parades feature hundreds of members of the armed forces along with school bands and civic groups. But the 2017 fete clearly was not enough of an ego-booster for the new president. Unique among recent commanders-in-chief, Donald Trump has an unhealthy fixation on soldiering and levying deadly threats. Should a military parade ever come to fruition, it would be intended to be a psy-ops spectacle—one designed to rouse Americans to rally against a one-of-a-kind foreign threat: North Korea. Trump desperately wants a face-off between his armed forces (and he clearly believes they are his to use as he sees fit) and those belonging to his designated adversary of the moment,...

Scott Keeler/Tampa Bay Times via AP Florida Governor Rick Scott and U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announce there will be no new offshore drilling in the State of Florida T he Trump administration’s draft five-year plan for leasing most continental shelf areas for oil and gas drilling met with equal parts of horror and consternation from most Republican and Democratic coastal governors. “Responsibly developing our energy resources on the Outer Continental Shelf in a safe and well-regulated way is important to our economy and energy security, and it provides billions of dollars to fund the conservation of our coastlines, public lands, and parks,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a January statement announcing the plan. (Note that safety has been the least of the administration’s concerns: Zinke had already rolled back Obama-era offshore drilling safety regulations in late December.) So fearful was Republican Governor Rick Scott of Florida of this plan that he...